


Extended Layover

by anomalagous



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 10:45:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8841556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anomalagous/pseuds/anomalagous
Summary: A fluffy, hopefully-beautiful little fic for mighty-alphalpha@tumblr for the Sciles Secret Santa 2016 exchange. I hope you like it!





	

In the end, UC Davis just hadn’t worked out.  


Stiles had never really bothered to put together too many of the particulars on it, whether it had been grades, or the constant string of absences, or the questionable records they’d sported after things like a _restraining order_ and the allegations that Stiles, himself, had been connected to some kind of terrible massacre at Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital. What it had come down to is that Davis had rejected Stiles outright, and while they’d accepted Scott, they hadn’t given him a generous enough scholarship to cover his financial needs.  


Scott hadn’t let Stiles hack the Davis system to give Scott the scholarship he so clearly deserved, which Stiles _didn’t understand_ in the _slightest_. He’d just kind of made a resigned, sad face and said they’d try again later.  


So they had. They’d waited a year, they’d buckled down, they’d taken community college courses to pad their GPAs. And then they’d gone back through the cycle of applying for colleges, and while they hadn’t accessed the _Davis dream_ , they’d found a new, different one at a college in New York.  


It had been an _experience_ , being so far from home, out on their own where the greatest responsibilities they had were more related to deadlines on term papers than _actual death_. After a week or two of adjustment, they’d taken to it like fish to water. It was nice, like a taste of the freedom Stiles knew they’d get to, someday.  


Now, it was winter break. They could have stayed in New York, hunkered down in their dorm room and weathered Christmas on the East Coast, but neither Scott nor Stiles had really wanted to. They’d already done that for Thanksgiving; a tiny, humble celebration in their dorm room with turkey sandwiches and Ocean Spray cranberry juice, instead. For _Christmas_ , they had scrimped and saved and pinched every penny to be able to afford the airfare for the trip. They’d left their campus as soon as possible, flush-faced from the cold and dragging their luggage behind, eager to be going home.  


Except they _weren’t_ going home, at least not any time soon. Some combination of overbooking and holiday stress and the _weather_ had them grounded behind security in Newark airport, waiting for some vaguely defined time in the future where they’d actually be let on a plane and taken across the country.  


It was four-thirty in the morning, it was Christmas Eve, and it was snowing outside the airport. The flight itself was a six-hour flight, and the further into the 24th the clock ticked, the more certain Stiles became that they were not going to make it before Christmas Eve became Christmas Day. He had already gotten up at least three times to yell at the gate agents, just to be restrained by Scott’s tireless wisdom that _they can’t do anything about it anyway_.  


He was right, of course, but it didn’t settle Stiles’ nerves. He didn’t particularly like problems that didn’t have solutions, especially ones that he couldn’t just obnoxious his way through when all else failed.  


Still, without Scott, Stiles probably would have been thrown out of the airport by now.  


Actually, now that he thought about it, _without Scott_ , Stiles would have been a lot of places he didn’t want to be, and very few places that he _did_.  


With a low groan, Stiles gathered his limbs up from the three-seat sprawl he’d been indulging in while protecting their carry-ons, and looked back over his shoulder to the only open restaurant-kiosk in their little part of the Terminal. Naturally, by means of some inexplicable preternatural instinct, Scott looked up from his transaction with the cashier just in time to catch Stiles watching. The soft, tired smile he offered made something flutter in Stiles’ chest.  


It wasn’t that Stiles had never noticed that Scott was attractive, because he had, _constantly_ , repeatedly, from just about the exact moment in time that Stiles had realized he found _any_ men (or, at the time, boys) attractive. It was just that the year’s sabbatical and a semester of college had been a _godsend_ to the already divinely touched Scott McCall.  


He’d settled into his body in a way that made it so clear that he was finally comfortable in it, in a way Stiles was sure he would never be comfortable in his own. He’d let his hair grow out just enough that it required no more styling than a hand passed through it to achieve that perfect tousled look, and he’d started to keep a beard in the colder months, neatly trimmed close. Stiles knew for a fact that Scott had spent the entire semester driving many of the people in their dorm building utterly mad.  


After all, Stiles was one of them.  


Scott left the kiosk and started back wearing that same soft smile and carrying two to go cups of hot drinks. One of them was cocoa, because Stiles could smell the chocolate and extra pumps of caramel from three feet away. He didn't hesitate to claim that cup when it was held out to him.  


Scott dropped into the seat next to Stiles with a worldly sigh and popped the top off of his drink to doctor the steeping tea inside. “Maybe we should just take a travel voucher and give up on getting back to California this break.”  


Stiles was grateful he hadn't yet braved a sip of his cocoa, because _that_ nonsense would have inspired him to spit it out immediately. “I’m sorry, _what_?”  


“I said-”  


“No, I mean I heard you, I just can't figure out why you would _say_ something like that.” Stiles squinted at his friend, worried that maybe the long hours spent idle in the airport were starting to damage that wolfy mind of Scott’s. (Stiles was pretty sure they were damaging _his,_ at least.)  


With his gaze more on his tea than on Stiles, Scott shrugged lopsidedly. “I mean, we've been here for hours, it’s just stressing you out. There’s no reason we _couldn’t_ just go back to the dorm. I'm sure our parents would understand.”  


Stiles snorted disapprovingly through the steam of his cocoa. “Other than the fact that I already had your Christmas present shipped to your house. What could we possibly do in New York that beats being home for Christmas where your Mom will cook for us?”  


There was a suspiciously long delay before Scott answered. He put the lid back on his tea and took a slow, hesitant sip, eyes fixed on the still, quiet terminal in front of them. “We could always go to Times Square for New Year’s.”  


Stiles wasn't sure why Scott was being so cagey about the discussion, except for how it was such a terrible idea. He added a frown to his catalogue of visible disapproval. “Do you have any idea how long we’d have to stand out there in the cold, with no seats or food or bathrooms or anything, just to have a _chance_ of seeing a ball drop that we could just as easily watch in the warm comfort of the McCall living room? With cocoa. And _bathrooms_ , I have to reiterate.”  


“But being there in person would be _romantic_.” Scott muttered, in that sullen-child way he sometimes used when he felt Stiles was murdering his good ideas in the crib.  


And the thing was, he wasn't wrong, spending New Year's Eve in Times Square would be almost unbearably romantic. It was just that the idea of Scott being romantic with anybody, let alone somebody _new_ , while Stiles was _right there,_ made his stomach turn. New York was supposed to be about _them._ Stiles didn't want some random stranger to come along and ruin it, trespassing in Stiles’ sanctuary at all hours, touching _his_ Scotty.  


The question came out more sharp-edged than he meant it to, honed on Stiles’ internal bitterness. “Oh, _sure,_ okay, and who exactly were you planning to get _romantical_ with, exactly?”  


Scott didn't hesitate to land the blow, but he said it so softly that Stiles was all but certain he’d misheard. “You.”  


The world had already been still, but there, it stopped moving entirely.  


There was no roaring sound of epiphany, no choir of singing angels, nothing but the sound of Stiles’ heartbeat suddenly thundering in his ears. The whole airport was quiet, devoid of other human life, giving Stiles no distraction as he looked at Scott’s face carefully aimed away from Stiles like he didn’t want to deal with the fallout of Stiles’ response. He watched the fan of Scott’s eyelashes against his cheek when he looked down at his tea, the softness that the tiredness and sudden candid honesty had given his face, and something in Stiles’ chest clutched tight.  


Stiles set his cocoa aside on the ground next to their seats, and leaned in towards Scott, trying to make his voice quiet and gentle. “Are...are you saying you want to take me to Times Square on New Year’s Eve to be _romantic_?”  


Scott lifted one hand to trace its finger around the lid of his tea. He kept his eyes carefully focused on the action, his expression growing sadder as time went on. He looked _resigned_ , like something was slowly draining out of him as he spoke, his own tone just as quiet and gentle. “Yeah. That’s what I’m saying. Stiles, I...I know we’ve always been close, like _really_ close, but living in the dorm with you, in the same _space_ with you? It’s been _great_. I’ve been so happy, not just going to class but getting to come back to you, to go out into the city and explore it with you. I guess at some point I just kind of realized we were basically doing all of the dating things except, you know... _that_ kind of stuff, and then _that_ kind of stuff was all I could think about doing with you. I thought maybe if I took you someplace super romantic and asked you out, you couldn’t tell me no.”  


That _something_ in Stiles’ chest exploded into a thousand sparkling motes of light, spreading like snowfall to the edges of his body. He made a whimpering sound in the back of his throat as it happened, something he couldn’t restrain, which made Scott finally turn to face him. His features were painted with sadness and worry, and all Stiles wanted to do was soothe every line and wrinkle out of them. “ _Scotty_. Why the hell do you think I’d tell you _no_? Don’t you remember all of those times in high school that I offered to make out? I just gave up on you ever coming around to it.”  


Surprise started to dawn over Scott’s face, dragging something like happiness up with it. He pulled his bottom lip into his mouth and Stiles thought maybe he’d been far gone _long_ before he even realized it, himself, because it was the most adorable thing Stiles had ever seen. “So, if I asked you if you wanted to date me in a totally _not_ romantic place, like, I don’t know, Newark airport Terminal C at four-thirty in the morning, you might say yes?”  


“I’m saying I would _absolutely_ say yes. Unequivocally. Without even a little hesitation.”  


Slowly, deliberately, like he was giving Stiles a chance to back out, Scott set his tea aside. He watched Stiles’ face for a handful of heartbeats and then he leaned in to pull Stiles into a kiss.  


It wasn’t a _kiss to end all kisses_ , it wasn’t overly passionate or deep-delving. It was just sleepy, and warm, and _perfect_.  


Stiles was smiling, almost laughing in a breathless way, when they pulled apart again. He leaned to the side just long enough to reclaim his cocoa, and then he wiggled his way around in the uncomfortable terminal seats so that he could sit sideways, propped up behind his back with his pillow, legs extended possessively over Scott’s lap. Scott laid a hand on one of his shins and somehow that was almost as perfect as the kiss had been. “Okay. So here’s the deal. I am _terrified_ of what happens if I don’t get you back to Beacon Hills after having promised your Mom we were coming back, so we’re still getting on that plane as soon as they’ll let us. But spring semester, I’ll let you take me to every romantic place in New York City you can think of, and by the time we get to New Year’s _next_ year, I think we’ll be ready to try navigating Times Square. Good?”

Scott’s smile was bright enough to outshine any of the lights that Stiles could hope to see on _any_ trip to Times Square. “Definitely good.”


End file.
